The automatic doors whooshed open, releasing a blast of antiseptic air and elevator music. I grabbed a basket, the red plastic cold against my palm. Props for the performance. A normal woman doing normal shopping. Paper towels first, then shampoo I didn’t need. Candy bars I’d never eat. Building a camouflage of mundane items around the real purpose of this trip.
The pregnancy test aisle stretched before me like an accusation. Three brands stared back, pink and blue boxes promising accuracy and early detection. I stood frozen, the basket growing heavy in my hand, reading the same labels over and over. Ninety-nine percent accurate. Results in three minutes. Early detection up to six days before the missed period. That last one almost made me laugh. Six days. I’d missed two entire months, maybe three. The signs had been screaming at me while I’d stuffed my fingers in my ears.
I had a faint idea of how wolf conception worked, but that didn’t mean my timeline was accurate. We had fucked twice. Fucking hell. I had only had sex twice and here I was already fetching pregnancy tests. The irony was not lost on me. But I had beenan idiot. I should have done something after the first night. But I had been caught up in the excitement of having a mate that I had forgotten all about contraception. And now I was going to pay for it.
How had I missed it? The question tormented me as I reached for the cheapest generic brand. My mother would have known immediately. Neva Thornback had a sixth sense for omega cycles, could diagnose pregnancies from across a room just by the way a woman held herself. She’d taught me to track my cycles with military precision, to notice every shift in temperature and mood. “Your body tells you everything,” she’d said, marking calendars with colored dots. “You just have to listen.”
But I’d stopped listening. Stopped tracking. Stopped everything that connected me to the omega I’d been. In my determination to disappear, I’d disappeared from myself too. The exhaustion I’d blamed on stress. The nausea I’d attributed to grief. The heightened senses I’d written off as hypervigilance. Each symptom dismissed, rationalized, ignored. My body had been screaming the truth while I’d been too stubborn or too terrified to hear it.
I grabbed three different tests. Different brands, different methods, different price points. As if spending more money might change the outcome. The boxes felt heavier than they should, weighted with consequences I couldn’t calculate. A woman with a toddler passed by, her cart full of diapers and formula. She smiled at me, that universal acknowledgment between women in this aisle. I wanted to run. I wanted to throw the tests back and pretend I’d never come here. She had no idea what it meant for me to be taking these tests. Her baby wasloved, mine, if there was one, had no idea what its future would hold.
My mother’s voice echoed in my memory. “When you have your first, I’ll be there. I’ll teach you everything just like my mother taught me.” Promises made in a kitchen that no longer existed, by a woman I’d never see again. She’d be in the outbacks now, if she’d survived the journey. And it was all my fault. I would find a way to call her tomorrow, there had to be something on that burner Papa had given me that could help me speak to her.
The teenage clerk came into view as I rounded the endcap. Tyler, according to his nametag, looked barely old enough to be out past curfew. Acne clustered on his chin, and his uniform shirt hung loose on his skinny frame. He scrolled through his phone with the dedication of his generation, earbuds blocking out the world. Perfect. The last thing I needed was a chatty cashier asking about due dates and baby names.
I added more camouflage items. Magazines whose covers carried women with perfect hair. Gum I’d never chew. A phone charger that didn’t fit my phone. Anything to bury the tests in the middle of the pile, to make this look like a random shopping trip instead of a desperate mission. My hands shook as I placed items on the conveyor belt, arranging them with obsessive care.
Tyler scanned without looking up, muscle memory guiding his movements. The tests beeped through without fanfare, just three more items in an endless stream of consumer goods. He mumbled the total while texting, one hand extended for payment.
“That’ll be $47.83.” His monotone suggested he’d rather be anywhere else.
“Keep the change.” I threw a fifty on the counter and fled before he could count it out.
The plastic bag felt radioactive in my hands, evidence of my desperation. I clutched it tight enough to leave red marks on my palms, walking fast toward the exit. An older woman smiled at me near the automatic doors, the kind of smile that said she recognized the bag’s contents, and remembered her own terrified trip to this aisle. Her eyes held sympathy and knowing, a shared sisterhood I couldn’t accept. Not when my situation defied normal categories of joy or sorrow. Not when the father of this child had branded me a murderer and cast me out like garbage.
This was so messed up on levels that could only be considered cosmic. If I had any sense of humor left, I would have probably laughed at myself right now.
***
The gas station bathroom between the pharmacy and Millbrook became my confession booth. I locked the door and leaned against it, breathing diesel fumes and industrial disinfectant. The overhead bulb flickered in an irregular pattern. Someone had tried to paint over the graffiti but given up halfway through, leaving ghost words visible beneath thin white primer.
My hands trembled as I unpacked the tests, laying them out on the narrow counter beside the sink. The instructions blurred together, but the process remained simple. Pee on a stick, wait three minutes, have your life imploded. Modern technology had reduced life-altering revelations to drugstore convenience.
The first test was the generic brand, white and pink packaging that screamed budget crisis. I followed the instructions with clinical precision, then sat on the closed toilet lid counting seconds. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. The childhood counting method felt absurd in this context, but my mind grabbed onto familiar patterns while everything else spun out of control.
One line for negative, two for positive. Simple binary code that would rewrite my entire existence. The test strip remained blank for thirty seconds, offering false hope. Then the first line appeared, dark and immediate in the control window. My heart hammered against my ribs, a caged bird trying to escape. The seconds stretched like taffy, each one an eternity of waiting.
The second line started as a whisper. Faint pink, barely visible, like a secret trying to stay hidden. I held the test closer to the flickering light, squinting at the result window. But chemistry doesn’t lie, and the line darkened with each passing second. By the two-minute mark, it blazed pink and undeniable. Two lines. Positive. Pregnant.
I took all three tests. Two pink lines on the generic. A blue plus sign on the name brand, its cross shape feeling particularly cruel given my circumstances. The digital one that spelled out “PREGNANT” in tiny black letters, removing any possibility of misinterpretation. No room for error, no margin for hope. I stared at them lined up on the sink counter like evidence at a trial.
“Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant.” I read each result aloud, my voice echoing off bathroom tiles.
The fluorescent light buzzed overhead, harsh and unforgiving. Its reflection caught every angle of my face in the mirror above the sink. Dark circles carved hollows beneath my eyes, evidence of weeks spent sleeping poorly. My cheekbones jutted sharp beneath skin that had taken on a grayish pallor. When had I gotten so thin? When had I started looking like someone recovering from a long illness?
The math was relentless. Fifteen weeks pregnant with the Lycan King’s child. My omega instincts stirred, recognizing truths the tests couldn’t reveal.
I gripped the sink edge until my knuckles went white, porcelain cool beneath my palms. The bathroom suddenly felt too small, walls pressing in from all sides. Somewhere beyond this gas station, Damon ruled his territory, probably sharing his bed with someone more suitable. A wolf suitable to be a Luna, who hadn’t been accused of murder. Who could give him heirs without hiding in gas station bathrooms three towns away from nowhere.
“He’ll never know. I’ll make sure of that.” I told my reflection, watching my own lips form the promise.
The woman in the mirror looked capable of keeping secrets. She’d already kept so many. Her past when Wayne made small talk. Her nature when alphas passed through town. One more secret shouldn’t matter, except this one would grow. This one would move and kick and demand to be born. This one carried the DNA of the man who’d destroyed everything I’d known.
I’m carrying the child of the man who destroyed my life. The knowledge settled into my bones, heavy and permanent. No denial could erase it, no logic could argue it away. Fifteen weeksof cells dividing and forming, creating something precious and terrifying inside me.
Damon’s heir grew inside me while I hid in a town that smelled like poverty and broken dreams. Only months ago the council had used the same excuse to deter me from taking my place by his side. And I had given a response befit to be the mother of his child. But now, here I was, in the middle of nowhere, holding on to the last semblance of reality.
The irony tasted bitter as bile.
